BASEL, Switzerland (MNI) – Senior officials from national central
bank across the globe, meeting here today, said unanimously that they
are not pursuing weak currency policies, European Central Bank President
Jean-Claude Trichet said at a press conference that followed the Global
Economy Meeting, which he heads.
Central bankers gathered here did not discuss the idea of returning
to the gold standard, which was suggested in a recent newspaper article
by World Bank President Robert Zoellick, Trichet said.
“I have to say that all participants mentioned in fact that they
were not pursuing weak currency policies,” Trichet stressed. “That is of
course something that is very important: Absolutely no participants said
they were pursuing weak currency policies.”
Trichet also reiterated that central banks “are attached to
avoiding excessive volatility” in foreign exchange markets and avoiding
“misalignments that we see as very, very counterproductive to global
growth and stability.”
“I felt that the colleagues were very much in line with the present
consensus that involves the necessity to have progressively more
exchange rate flexibility as was mentioned in Toronto,” he continued.
The ECB president would not be drawn into a debate about the merits
of action taken by individual central banks — namely, the recent round
of quantitative easing by the U.S. Federal Reserve — saying that each
central bank acts in a manner that is appropriate to its particular
mandate.
He evaded any direct comment on actions taken by the Fed: “I do not
want to respond to anything that is peculiar to a particular central
bank. It is not the rule of the game.”
All central bankers share a “unity of purpose” in anchoring
inflation expectations, Trichet said. Furthermore, there is a “very,
very close definition of price stability in advanced economies,” which
is around 2%, the goal pursued by the ECB, he said.
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–Frankfurt bureau; +49-69-720142, frankfurt@marketnews.com
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